I recently decided I needed to track down a vintage Neptunian action figure to join the more recent replica Mego "Star Trek" line that has been coming out.
While "The Keeper" resembled a strange combination of Ted Cassidy's Ruk the android ("What Are Little Girls Made Of?") and the scarecrow/puppet head version of Balok he voiced in "The Corbomite Maneuver", Bele of Cheron was in a monochromatic wardrobe malfunction, and the first Mego Gorn was originally a Spider-Man villain, The Lizard, but in Klingon uniform, the bizarre and scaly green Neptunian didn't seem to qualify for a re-release.
Neptunian was a complete leap of faith on the part of the Mego sculptor and designer. Only vaguely resembling some of the alien races we met in Filmation's animated "Star Trek" (TAS) - and highly unlikely to really hail from neighbouring Neptune (I guess the planet is supposed to be ruled by King Neptune?) - this aquatic alien supposedly sold quite well, being in the Wave 2 selection. It was Wave 3 (Andorian, Romulan, Talos[ian] and the Mugato, who wore his funky, fringed, 70s disco outfit) which was the hardest set of figures to find at retail, supposedly partly due to a warehouse fire and being closer to the end of the reign of Mego 8" figures in general.
The next wave of replica Megos are to be all-new figures (Pike, Vina as an Orion, Chapel and the Salt Vampire). Suddenly the classic 70s Neptunian was a "must have" item for my collection. I understand he even has the rarer yellow underarm fins, not the green of most of the line. (There is debate about a certain bolt of fabric used by Mego; either the intended green turned yellow over time or the wrong colour was used on several Mego figures that year.)
Thank you eBay and the "Buy it now" facility!
The newly revised Gorn meets Mego's classic Neptunian.
Check out Mego's original Gorn and compare him to Marvel's "The Lizard" Mego figure at:
www.megomuseum.com/trek/gorn.shtml
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3 comments:
Thanks Ian, you are definately the most imaginative and energetic person I know. I have no idea where you get your ideas from, but keep them coming. They are just wonderful. On behalf of everybody who loves your stuff and your positive fun attitude.
Thanks
Robert Bruns (Facebook)
My pleasure, Robert!
Aha! The origin of the Neptunian:
Supposedly, Mego was preparing to release "The Creature from the Black Lagoon" action figure as part of their popular "Mad Monsters" series (Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein's Monster, The Wolfman, etc), but couldn’t secure the tie-in licence for that particular movie character. They were able to recoop some of the tooling cost by creating a new head and producing an original aquatic alien for the Star Trek crew to encounter.
It really takes commitment to keep an eye out for the bits and pieces you must need for your customs Ian, Im constantly amazed with the characters you come up with. One day Im going to send you a big box of Science Fiction heads and bodies and bit and pieces and just see what you can come up with. I bet Paramount buys the rights to half the characters you make!!
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